Wild green tea, premium grade (two leaves and a bud) from jungles.
The aroma is complex, in the dominant, there is a mixed berry jam (strawberry, currant), sea-buckthorn.
The taste is deep, berry-floral and oily. Very long aftertaste. Strong like a good pu-erh due to the material.
This is a Thai forest tea so the leaves it is made from are traditionally picked up from ancient trees, basically, 200-500-year-old.
And when we announce forest, it means real forest, where tea trees grow wildly, as is, among other trees and bushes. Neither plantations nor even gardens.
The harvesting in there is quite hard and laborious. But as a result, you get a real, live organic tea.
This green tea was roasted manually in a wok, right on the edge of the jungle in a small tea hut.
Be careful with this one! This is a very good tea, but delicate. On first try, I used 6g leaves, 200ml pot, 80c water, for 30 seconds, my typical green tea parameters. I found the tea quite bitter, although the fruity, almost strawberry tartness still came through. Decreased brew times helped, but I kind of wrote the tea off and moved on to other samples. Coming back around to this one, dropped to 4g, 15 seconds. Much better: creamy and very sweet, with the faint strawberry tartness still present. Lingering honey sweetness in the mouth.
I’ll say right away, this is one of the Thai teas, which intoxicated me.
Water at 85°C. Tea is interesting, multifaced. With tartness, sweetness and mint coldness on the palate. Beautiful, clean material and fit its infusion. Ye Sheng Liu Cha is bright and concrete, not like a wild fellow. I would rather believe, it is a tea garden in the forest, such a distant tea lodge, which I met in the mountains of Yunnan. By the middle of the session, classic bitterness, astringency. The finale is clear, bitter, and contrast, with a long sweet aftertaste. It differs from the finish of the classic green. Interesting tea, with Its own face and profile. Withstood more than 10 steeps, which also speaks of its quality.
I'm a big fan of green teas and it was with them that my tea passion began. Despite the fact that now my favorites are the young shengs (raw puers), I did not abandon the green teas and was looking forward to the spring harvest this year. I ordered a bunch of samples from different suppliers, filled two shelves in the fridge and have almost written a review, as there appeared an announcement from TeaSide about forest green tea. I couldn’t pass by this and ordered it immediately.
The fragrance from the open package is so pleasant that I can smell and enjoy it all day. Here is something fruity, and hints of freshly mown grass, and some wood scents. It seems that it is similar to "ordinary" green tea, but there are also unique notes. The taste is stunning, very bright.
But the most interesting for me was the tea effect. I don't really feel Qi energy, but here it was impossible to feel - a very powerful meditative and relaxing effect. The first time I drank it was right after the sheng, and instead of the usual invigorating effect, there was such a contemplative mood that for the next half an hour I looked out the window at the flight of birds, at the waving of leaves and felt the harmony of the world. But the tonic effect is fully present also - after drinking this tea at night, I could not sleep until two in the morning.
In general, now I think the issue of the exemplary green tea is closed :). TeaSide, many thanks for such samples!